California is the most populous state in the US, with more than 38 million people spread across its 163,696 square miles. A new initiative wants to split California into six states, deeming the current California "ungovernable."

Venture capitalist Tim Draper filed a ballot initiative in December to get a measure on the California ballot in 2014 to divide up the state, and he has just received a greenlight from California Secretary of State Debra Bowen to begin collecting signatures for his ballot petition. He proposes creating six states: Jefferson, North California, Silicon Valley, Central California, West California, and South California.

In an email with TechCrunch, Draper said that he has put forth the proposal so that Californians would receive greater proportional representation in the US Senate, to encourage greater competition, to allow states to "start fresh" with "a more relevant constitution," and to make governing "decisions more relevant to the population." Of course, it would also likely change the party make-up of the US Senate (Edit: and, as commenter monsieurxander notes, the distribution of California's electoral college votes); although Draper contributed to Barack Obama's presidential election campaign in 2008, he is a Republican.

Draper has set up a website for his Six Californias plan, and hopes to have a measure on the ballot as early as this November. Even if Californians were to approve the measure, the US Constitution states that the federal Congress must vote on whether to welcome new states into the Union.